In the first half of 2009 the industrial production suffered a serious fall, compared to the first semester of 2008, in all the specialty divisions of the region.
In Lombardy the drops have strongly affected all the major sectors and in particular those related to specialty productions:
- steel industry (-15.3%)
- mechanics (-12.5%)
- textile (-13%)
- wood and furniture (-11.1%)
- rubber (-12.4%)
- chemical (-8.8)
The survey of Banca d’Italia
The survey conducted between the end of September and the beginning of October on a sample of 292 industrial companies from Lombardy with at least 20 employees, confirms the contraction on the use of the technical capacity, the weakness of the demand and the uncertainty on future perspectives (45% of the companies has downsized its investments budgets for 2009).
For 2010 a substantial stability in the accumulation process is expected.
Foreign trade
In the first semester of 2009, compared to the same period of 2008, the export sales dropped by 23.7 percentage points and the imports by 25.7 points.
Sectors such as machinery, automotive and chemical products are those that have mainly contributed to the drop of the exports and regional imports. While textile and clothing have furthermore negatively contributed to the exports; computers, electronic equipments and optics did the same to the imports.
Export contraction affected mainly Eu markets.